Presenters

Daytime Presenters

Note - this schedule is subject to change and will be updated periodically.

Mouse over a cell in the above document and the presentation title will pop up. The lineup of presenters is as strong as ever for this year's conference, which marks the fourth international gathering of integral academics and professionals. Attendees of previous conferences (2008, 2010, 2013) will observe a new design (e.g., morning keynotes) and new formats (e.g., triad presentations, "Democracy 3D" panels).

ITC 2015: Keynote Presenters

Friday, July 17

Karen O’Brien, Ph.D.Professor of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Norway

Integral in Action: Climate Change and Transformations to Sustainability

What do we mean by transformation in the context of climate change, and why is it both personal and political? This talk discusses the importance of framing climate change as an adaptive challenge rather than merely as a technical problem, and considers the implications for science and society. It explores the impacts of an integral approach on the types of responses that we prioritize when responding to global environmental challenges. In particular, it draws attention to the importance of adapting to climate change from the inside out.

Karen O’Brien has been working on climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation research for more than 25 years. In the 2007 she shared in the Nobel Peace Prize award to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She is interested in how transdisciplinary and integral approaches to global change research can contribute to a better understanding of how societies both create and respond to change, and in particular how beliefs, values, and worldviews influence human responses to climate change and transformations to sustainability.

Saturday, July 18

Bill Torbert, Ph.D.Principal, Action Inquiry Associates

The Kinds of Inquiry, Power, and Love Required for Timely, Developmentally Transforming Practice

Timely, developmentally transforming practice requires a combination of first-, second-, and third-person inquiry into the past, present, and future that generates single-, double-, and triple-loop feedback. Such practice also requires the exercise of less and less unilateral power and more and more of the four kinds of mutually transforming power, along with non-possessive love. What do all these words mean? And how is our impact as change leaders increased with these kinds of inquiry, power, and love? Let's find out together on July 18!

Bill Torbert is an award-winning teacher, international consultant, board member, and author of a dozen books. He taught at Southern Methodist University, Harvard, and Boston College, where he is now Professor Emeritus of leadership. In 2013, he received the Center for Creative Leadership’s Walter F. Ulmer Lifetime Award for Applied Leadership Research, and in 2014, the Chris Argyris Career Achievement Award for his work on Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry.

Sunday, July 19

Elza Maalouf, CEO and Co-founderCenter for Human Emergence Middle East

Integral Design in the Midst of Chaos, Bloodshed, and Revolution

How does one navigate the treacherous landscape of Middle Eastern politics and corporate practice? This talk reviews the crucial design elements of large-scale systems in Israel/Palestine, informed by hands-on experiences with feudal and tribal leaders, who hold the key to the future development of the region. Learn how the impact of integral principles in a mid-size Middle Eastern corporation elevated consciousness levels and empowered key individuals to redefine responsible profit while simultaneously capturing higher market share.

Elza S. Maalouf is a Lebanese-American futurist, theorist, author, and public speaker. She is one of the foremost experts on the memetics of the Middle East and pioneered the use of the value systems framework and Integral Theory practices in Middle Eastern politics and business. Her newest book is Emerge! The Rise of Functional Democracy and the Future of the Middle East. She is president of the international consulting firm Integral Insight.

SPECIAL EVENT

Sunday, July 19

Ken Wilber, FounderIntegral Institute

At the Frothy Edge of Geopolitical Impact: Nation Building in Ukraine (and a Brief Look at Pluralistic Ontology)

For the last eighteen months a select group of integral leaders representing the Integral Institute has been working closely with a team in Ukraine to develop applied integral materials across a range of civil and government contexts to support the development of rebuilding the nation of Ukraine. Learn the latest updates about the leadership role that Integral Institute is taking in this historic initiative and the kinds of impact it will have not only in Ukraine but around the globe. Ken will also discuss the ontology problem and how Integral Theory resolves it and the role that developmental studies plays in addressing a number of issues facing various forms of realism. (Via video)

Ken Wilber is the author of over twenty books. He is the chief architect of integral theory and is founder of Integral Institute, a think-tank for studying integral theory and practice. His most recent book, The Religion of Tomorrow, will be available in late 2015.

WELCOME ADDRESS

Thursday, July 16

Discover the top ten integral projects on the planet and learn about the kind of impact they have had and what they tell us about the future of integral applications. This talk frames the theme of this year’s conference and its keynote addresses. An emphasis is placed on the kinds of questions the integral community must ask itself and how we can learn from the successes and failures of integral approaches over the last 20 years. Particular attention is paid to the issues of how integral approaches can have more impact, what unique kinds of impact we can have, and how we might not only measure those impacts, but actually change the conversation around designing and assessing for impact.

Sean Esbjörn-Hargens is founder of MetaIntegral, a purpose-driven virtual and physical global network of professionals and visionary organizations collaborating to create a thriving planetary civilization. Sean is a leading scholar-practitioner in integral metatheories. His most recent book is the co-edited volume Metatheory for the 21st Century: Critical Realism and Integral Theory in Dialogue.

A complex understanding ... allows us to join together, in an indissoluble manner, the "I" with the "we", and both of these with the "they" and the "it."

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~ Edgar Morin, French philosopher and sociologist

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If ordinary people don't perceive that our grand ideas are working in their lives then they can't develop the higher level of consciousness ... that the American philosopher Ken Wilber wrote a whole book about called A Theory of Everything - he says the problem is the world needs to be more integrated but it requires a consciousness...[that has] an ability to see beyond the differences among us.

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~ Bill Clinton, speaking at Davos

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Although earlier deterministic, mechanistic, and dualistic characterizations have been rejected, there remains a great challenge to contemporary researchers: they must identify and employ an integrated framework, which must accommodate spatially and temporally specific natural and social scientific information and include evidence of changing values, perceptions, and awareness.

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~ Carole Crumley, Advances in Historical Ecology

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The rich countries' problem is rigidity and the poor countries' problem is capacity. Then we all share a problem that was best articulated by the philosopher Ken Wilber. He's got this theory that there are basically 10 levels of consciousness—the way we view ourselves, the way we view others—and that it's almost impossible for people to keep up with what circumstances require.

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~ Bill Clinton, Newsweek Magazine Dec 20th, 2009

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[In the 21st century], there will be an urgent need for scholars who go beyond the isolated facts; who make connections across the disciplines; and who begin to discover a more coherent view of knowledge and a more integrated, more authentic view of life.

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~ Ernest Boyer, 1928 – 1995

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[Integral Knowledge] is the organic synthesis of theology, philosophy, and experimental science, and only this synthesis may contain in itself the integral truth of knowledge: outside of it science, philosophy, and theology are only separate parts or aspects, detached organs of knowledge, and thus they cannot in any way be adequate for integral truth itself.

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~ Vladimir Solovyov, The Principles of Integral Knowledge (1877)

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To understand the ... history of the Earth it is necessary to integrate the different perspectives, theories, tools, and knowledge of multiple disciplines across the full spectrum of social and natural sciences and the humanities.

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~ Robert Costanza, Lisa Graumlich, and Will Steffen, Sustainability or Collapse: An Integrated History and Future of People on Earth

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If humanity does not opt for integrity we are through completely. It is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference.

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~ Buckminster Fuller, 1895 – 1983

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As long as we do not bring metapraxis more into the foreground of our analyses, we cannot fully bridge that separation between theory and practice.

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~ Thomas Kasulis, professor of comparative religion

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An integrated sociological paradigm must deal with macroscopic objective entities like bureaucracy, macro-subjective structures like culture, micro-objective phenomena like patterns of interaction, and micro-subjective facts like the process of reality construction.

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~ George Ritzer, Toward an Integrated Sociological Paradigm (1981)

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A new meta-field -- correlating the arts, humanities, and social sciences with the emerging brain sciences around central issues we all share....the construction of a new synthetic field -- a dynamic meta- or intersectional field that is still in the state of becoming. No single map yet exists to chart the terrain of its emergence.

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~ Barbara Maria Stafford, A Field Guide to a New Meta-Field

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Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.